I came here to eat at those restaurants, and in particular to eat their enchiladas, plate after plate of fat-dipped tortillas wrapped around their filling, topped with cheese and broiled into molten excellence. I ate enchiladas with intent. Because: It would be great to make enchiladas at home. It would be great to make them casually, often, for a weeknight meal for family and friends.

For anyone interested in doing that, in deploying the American home cook’s standard mechanism of taking a delicious restaurant dish or regional specialty and making it into a casserole (that’d be me!), the restaurants of Houston are a good place to start.

Ken Burns is going to make a country music documentary to be released in 2019. Nashville Mayor Megan Barry will use part of the $1.375MM in the proposed budget for ‘music and entertainment economic development and film initiatives’ to help, as it’s believed the film will bring more people to town.

“I cried for three days when I moved here,” she said, leaning forward on her stool and resting her elbows on her bar. “But now, I don’t know why — I hate to love it so much. There’s something about the dirt. It gets stuck in your toes.”

We got in Billy’s crawfish boat with another case of beer and a giant floodlight and headed out into the rice fields, which were flooded with about a foot of water. This is when I discov­ered that you definitely don’t want to be the person holding the floodlight. I’ve been around plenty of bugs and mosquitoes, but nothing like the swarm that consumes you when you are holding a bright light in a rice field in the middle of the night.

…I’m admittedly biased with regard to these matters. However I do not think that that I am totally misreading the signs of the times with respect to the relative eclipse of critical interest in Finster. The fact is that outsider art gatekeepers no longer spontaneously invoke Finster as an outsider giant alongside the pantheon of Ramirez, Darger, and Traylor. I do not mean to cast doubt on the greatness of this extraordinary triumvirate, but what explains the diminishment of Finster? What is truly curious about the case of Howard Finster is the rather dramatic shift in opinion and, even more peculiar given his cultural impact, the general lack of serious interest, analysis, and interpretation of his life and body of work. In the words of the new folk art curator at Atlanta’s High Museum Katherine Jentleson, the time has come for a “reappraisal“ of Howard Finster (Art Papers July-August 2015).

This very curious piece from the chairman of Howard Finster’s Paradise Gardens Park and Museum in Georgia on how he sees the (as he puts it) ‘activist culture’ at NPS being used contrary to his own beliefs, and EOM’s Pasaquan is mentioned. Just going to keep in mind this sentence the chairman wrote himself:

Rev. Finster, a Baptist minister, had been the pastor of rural churches in Georgia, had become a beloved figure for his lifelong motto “I have never met a person I did not love.”

My understanding (not presenting as fact, but after hearing from some Finster people) is that the author owns only the house adjacent to the property and has actually been banned from the actual Paradise Gardens. Lots and lots and lots of ill will here. I and many others agree that Finster would be very unhappy with this piece, as he did love everybody.

—In Edmonton, Alberta, there’s a new Southern (US) themed restaurant called ‘Have Mercy’ — some bits from the CBC article:

Tacky, trashy and tasty — it’s a winning combination……”This is sort of trashy food, and they’re OK with that,” Campbell says.The fried chicken came with two juicy, crispy, salty pieces, and a doughnut on the side — because, why not? ‘This menu is a really good representation of what you would find on the back roads of the Deep South.’I am practically ready to start rending my clothes after reading that. Interesting that this is how the people behind this restaurant in Canada choose to portray their vision of the American South. Fun is fun. But fried chicken with a doughnut on the side isn’t a ‘good representation of what you would find on the back roads of the Deep South’ – not that I haven’t seen some crazy. But still. And these videos. Guns, and kids with guns. Have Mercy, indeed.

The gallery has already established spaces for Daniel Buren in Miami, Barbara Kasten in Sante Fe and Eric Wesley in Cahokia, Illinois. Wesley’s space is a former Taco Bell restaurant “replete with ersatz Spanish colonial architecture”, according to a release.

—The Improbable Rise of Mississippi Roast in the NYTimes, the recipe for which (by Robin Chapman of Ripley, MS) calls for beef chuck, a packet of dry ranch dressing mix, a packet of dry au jus gravy mix, a stick of butter, and some pepperoncini. Turns out, the recipe has been pinned over a million times. The most curious part is that when the NYT author asked some sources, one who was unfamiliar with it asked if it was called ‘Mississippi’ to be dismissive, as in the ‘White Trash’ cooking book. What? I’d never heard of it either, but yeouch.

Also: you know the aliens are out there but aren’t coming to visit because they’ve read the comments section at al.com and nola.com, and that was enough to scare them off, right? Anyway, the comments for this story are generally pretty great.

Jacks said Seaberry’s most lasting legacy was building a structure that allowed people of all races to intermingle without pretense — “people who in any other situation probably wouldn’t have said more than two words to each other, but for a couple of hours on a Thursday night they were best friends because (Seaberry) made it OK.

The AP reported that heavy rains in March caused a ‘slope failure’ on the largest of the Winterville Mounds. The section was approximately 24 ft wide, 18 ft deep, and 100 ft long, and it slid to the bottom of the mound.

GQ Magazine did a piece on Five Gross Sandwich Combinations People Actually Eat — they dislike the idea of banana/mayo and pineapple/mayo, but I approve and am married to a peanut butter and bologna adherent. Last month, we hosted two Israeli girls for camp, and they introduced me to what they like: cottage cheese on a slice of bread, open-face. I would have never thought that up.

This is a story we are all being fed. A story about overalls, rich soil and John Deere tractors scattering broods of busy chickens. A story about healthy animals living happy lives, heirloom tomatoes hanging heavy and earnest artisans rolling wheels of cheese into aging caves nearby.

More often than not, those things are fairy tales. A long list of Tampa Bay restaurants are willing to capitalize on our hunger for the story.

Over several weeks, I visited Tampa Bay’s outdoor markets. At a dozen different markets, I counted 346 discrete vendors, many of whom sell at multiple markets. Of that number, only 16 sold their own produce, honey, eggs, meat or dairy. Plenty of wind chimes and hot sauces, but less than 5 percent represented Florida farmers growing their own food.

and

I ask a young woman if the produce is from her farm. She says yes. I ask if it is all from her farm. She says no, they buy from neighboring farms. When I notice asparagus and apples, which generally don’t grow in Florida, I ask if it is resold produce from a broader radius. She says yes. And then I ask, specifically, which items are grown on Lee Farms.